For four days this week (March 26-29), thousands of white people are getting together in downtown Madison, Wis. to talk about how guilty they feel about the color of their skin.

The self-flagellation conclave is called the White Privilege Conference.

A sea of 2,500 (mostly) white people is expected to attend. They will mull over ways to tear down a system of “white supremacy, white privilege and oppression.”

The best part is that taxpayers are footing a big chunk of the bill. At least $20,000 in cash from taxpayers – and possibly much more –will go toward staging the four-day confab, according to Wisconsin Reporter.

Conference organizers say the event will be a gabfest about how white people have a bunch of privileges and how people with non-pasty skin suffer under the yoke of invisible oppression. But don’t worry, organizers swear, “it is not a conference designed to attack, degrade or beat up on white folks.”

According to conference organizers, examples of white privilege include assuming “your failures will not be attributed to your race, or your gender” and assuming textbooks will feature of “the same race, gender, or sexual orientation as you are.”

Also, white privilege helps you “not have to think about your race, or your gender, or your sexual orientation, or disabilities, on a daily basis.”

The organizers do not explain what gender, sexual orientation or disabilities have to do with skin color. Perhaps that information will be revealed at the conference.

The Janesville Gazette describes in glowing terms how Neil Deupree, a former pastor and current member of a “diversity action team,” believes the conference will be life-changing for local white people.

“The point of the conference is to remind people our society is built on an invisible knapsack of white privilege,” Deupree told the Gazette.

“I personally believe when we have a conference we are saying, ‘No, it’s not over.’ Our society still has many aspects that are built-in to put white people on top. Some people would rather believe that’s not the case,” he added.